Grace & Hope For Children

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Friday morning I woke up feeling down because our home-study is STILL not complete. Yes, we are finished with all of our visits from our SW but we are still waiting on a good bit of documents that our SW requires. My fingerprints have not came back yet so we are still waiting to see if they get accepted the second time around. Our tax forms from 2011 have not came back yet but that is Jeff's fault because he keeps forgetting to call our accountant and give him his mileage from last year so our accountant can finish them. Jeff promises to call first him first thing in the morning.

I WILL remind him! :)

Friday, March 30 is my Birthday and the only thing I want more than anything is for EVERYTHING to be turned in to our Social Worker so that she can write up our home-study!

PLEASE

Anyway like I said I was feeling down Friday morning. We REALLY want Meiya home THIS year! The Summer would actually be ideal for us to travel to Ch*na because Jeff wouldn't miss any work from School Bus driving. We will take whatever date we are given though. The sooner the better in our eyes because we REALLY want our baby girl home!

Friday evening I got an email from a coordinator from Grace & Hope For Children. She told me that Meiya is in their foster care program! Grace & Hope For Children is a Christian Foster Care program that recruits and trains foster families in Ch*na while supporting them. The children are supported by faithful sponsors who pledge a certain amount each month to keep them in the program. From what we've heard from other families who's own children were in this program it is AWESOME!!! The children are placed in loving, Christian foster homes where they are taught, nurtured and loved. Each year they send their staff to Ch*na to visit the various orphanages and foster families that they work with. This year they happen to be going to Meiya's city and province. YAY God! See I know He has His hands in ALL of this! Here is a video explaining a little bit about them. One of the American women in this video is the woman who contacted me!

This video explains the importance of foster care through Grace & Hope For Children.

Needless to say hearing this great news about Meiya lifted my spirits! I am so excited that she is in this program getting the love and care she deserves, the love and care we long to give her. We are so VERY thankful for her faithful sponsor who pays to keep her in this program. Whoever you are please know that we feel that YOU are a part of our family now! God bless you!!! Words can not express how thankful we are for you. We were told that when we come to Ch*na to get Meiya we will be given her foster care reports as well as pictures which will be hand delivered to our hotel room. Knowing that Meiya is in such excellent care really means a lot to us. But knowing she is in a Christian home where she is learning about Christ and His love for her is priceless to us! I know we still have a good wait ahead of us but knowing all of this makes the waiting a little bit easier!

Sunday Fun!

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Sunday's are normally busy days for the us! We start off going to Sunday school then church. After church we go to Cracker Barrel for lunch then serve communion to Mrs. B, who is in one of the assisted living facilities in town. We usually get home by 3:30 pm to rest a while before we run back out to Youth Group and evening services at 6.

Today was a break from our normal, Sunday routine because the girls got to go to a puppet show with their American Heritage Girls group at Wonderment Puppet Theater, downtown Martinsburg. We had a blast! Mr. Santoro performed "Peter Cottontail" and I must say the adults loved it as much as the kids did!!! Michael T did the voice for mother rabbit and Peter. He also did a fantastic job!

This is Michael T with Hannah and Hailee at Chick fil a.

Mr. Santoro did the voices for Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Mr. McGregor. He actually designs and makes ALL of his puppets!

Here he is with mother Rabbit

After the show the girls got to go behind the scenes to see how he does it all.

Of course Hailee wasn't paying much attention because of the Oobie eyes that we got her. She is a stinker! Most of the girls got Oobie eyes. My kids were so excited to see those because they LOVED that show when they were babies. *SNIFF, SNIFF I need a moment. I am verklempt.... Talk amongst yourselves... They are growing up so fast! *

Mr. Santoro showed the girls how to use their Oobie eyes and even did a little skit with some of them and Mr. McGregor.

(Hannah's are the pink ones and Hailee's are the brown ones)

We had such a wonderful time and it was so refreshing to do something different for a change. We are definitely going back to see another show.

Here is the link to Wonderment Puppet Theater's website: http://wondermentpuppets.com/default.aspx

Come on Already!!!

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I have realized that waiting is not my forte! I know it has only been 2 months and 4 days that we've been waiting but it feels like a year to me. Some people will laugh at me being frustrated because it has only been 2 months but I am tired of these tiny, little things that are holding up our homestudy from being complete. Sure our SW is done visiting us and interviewing us BUT there are a lot of documents that she needs to get from us and from other places in order for her to be able to write up our homestudy. I have a long list of things she needs and each time she gets something from that list I do a happy dance and gladly cross it off! The list is getting much shorter but it is still too long for me. I want everything turned in NOW! Right now we are still waiting on this years tax papers to come in from our accountant which is okay since we just got them done Saturday. In our many moves Jeff's college degree/diploma was lost so he ordered a new one from Kentucky Christian University. He ordered it a month ago and they still have not mailed it to him. He called them yesterday and they said it would be mailed out today. My crazy fingerprints for the state of WV had to be redone today. They were rejected when I had them done February 6. I JUST got the letter last week telling me I had to have them redone. Today was the earliest that they could schedule me in. It takes 15 days for them to be processed after that. Adding an extra 15 days to this homestudy process is a nightmare right now. We wanted our homestudy complete and turned in to our adoption agency by the beginning of April at the latest. That is not going to happen, I know.

I look at little Meiya's picture's all the time and I can't help but worry about her. I worry that someone else who is more paper ready will swoop in and adopt her right out from under us! People tell me that won't happen but I can't help but have this ongoing fear. I know my faith sounds very weak right now and I am working on it. Believe me, I am. I pray all the time.

I know we have a long road ahead of us and a lot more waiting to do but I will be so glad when this homestudy is complete. After it is complete and sent to our agency for approval then we can send our dossier to C and work on the i800. I know that both of those items require a long wait. My thinking on those is that at least we have ALL of our stuff done on our end. Until then we will continue to wait on everybody else so we can get this homestudy complete!